Tuesday, 15 November 2016

With Donald Trump's victory, Assad has been given free rein in Syria

'The same day Americans elected Donald Trump for president — a man who has dismissed the shattered, starved, gassed and barrel-bombed refugees of Syria's civil war as "definitely in many cases ISIS-aligned" — Syrian government forces fought their way into a strategic neighbourhood on the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo.

The two events are linked. Aleppo, once one of Syria's most glorious cities, has been pulverized by fighting between rival forces, as well as by airstrikes carried out by the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies. The nihilistic head-hackers of ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, prowl beyond the city, mostly untouched by Russian or Syrian bombs.

Assad and his allies, which include Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, are by far the most prolific mass murderers in Syria. ISIS has seized headlines with its videotaped gore. But most of Syria's dead are dead because of Assad and indeed, most Syrian refugees have fled because of Assad. Unlike ISIS, Assad's forces don't publicize their bloodlust. But anyone who doubts its existence need only consult the photographs of thousands of torture-scarred corpses smuggled out of Syria by "Caesar," a former Syrian government forensic photographer who once worked at two Syrian military hospitals in Damascus. And now Assad has been given free rein. He knows he has nothing to fear from America. American support for Syria's opposition —"we don't know who the rebels are," Trump says — will dry up. Trump will try to forge some sort of cooperation with Russia against ISIS, reinforcing Putin's growing strength and influence in the Middle East. And Syria's opposition and civilian victims will find themselves as alone and isolated as they have ever been.To be sure, America's support for Syria's opposition and its will to confront Assad was always tepid. President Barack Obama said the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a "red line" for him, but then withered when Assad's forces used sarin-filled shells to kill some 1,400 Syrians men, women and children in 2013. America has armed and trained Syrian rebels, but only in small numbers. It never bombed Assad's forces their behalf, or established a no-fly zone where Syrian civilians might be safe from Syrian and Russian airstrikes. Some Syrians hoped a Clinton presidency might bring some relief from their greatest tormentor. It now seems certain Assad will endure."That S.O.B. we have in Damascus is the luckiest bastard in the world," says Faisal Alazem, Montreal director of the Syrian Canadian Council. "He had eight years of Obama, where red line after red line was crossed with no consequences. And now he gets Trump, probably the Western leader that is going to be the closest to Vladimir Putin." Five years ago, Alazem says, he was the most optimistic person in the world. He believed the interests of Syrian democrats and Western governments were aligned, and together they would force Assad from power. Now, Alazem, who also runs a charity that operates a school for Syrian refugees in Turkey, has concluded that no one outside Syria will help its people. But he still doesn't believe the Syrian revolution is dead. "As long as there is one person on the streets defying all this violence around him, whether it's ISIS or these barrel bombs falling on their heads, it's not [over]. Because it's a miracle. No normal human being can sustain and resist so much violence, and people still are. But it's not the spring we were dreaming about five years ago. And the price Syrians have to pay is just incredible." '